Month: March 2021

By Grace

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Lectionary Passage:  Ephesians 2:1-10 (Lent 4B)

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

There’s actually two parts to this passage.  There’s a “before” and there’s an “after”.  BEFORE you were dead…and AFTER you weren’t.  BEFORE you were of this world…and AFTER you weren’t.  BEFORE you had it wrong…and AFTER you don’t.  That’s probably enough.  We can just stop there. 

No, not going to stop…The writer of this letter (who is more than likely not the Apostle Paul but rather a later follower or disciple of Paul’s) seems to be really focused on continuing this separation between this world and God, between the “sinful” world and God’s promise of grace and life.  Paul had introduced the notion of being justified by grace through faith, the notion that God was a redemptive God, that it was a process by which we traversed the experience of this world and along the way encountered God.  But, here, that word “saved” appears, as if it’s past tense, as if it is some badge of honor that we earn and wear as we continue to seem to be forced to live in this sin-filled world in which we live.  Somewhere along the way eschatology became realized, “already”, rather than something to which we look and live into.

Now keep in mind that this letter was probably written in the late first century.  Jesus had come, died on the cross, and the Resurrection on which everything that is “Christian” is based had happened.  And Jesus had promised to return.  That had been imminent for Paul.  And, yet, it hadn’t happened yet.  The first century followers of Christ (it still wasn’t “Christianity”, per se, the way we think of it today) were wondering if perhaps they had misunderstood, perhaps they had gotten the whole thing wrong.  So, the emphasis for the writer of Ephesians (as well as others), was a notion of salvation as something that had already happened, an emphasis on the crowned Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.  And for those of us who are still mired in the throes of worldly evil and worldly despairs, there became a separation, a dualism that was put into place that pretty much exists even today.  So many of us live in this world, burdened by sin, and hope against hope that God will swoop in and save us. And it becomes even easier for us to separate the world into the “saved” and the “unsaved”, those who “get it” and those who don’t.

Really?  Is that it?  What happened to “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, BUT in order that the world might be saved through him.“?  God’s vision of the Kingdom of God is not to shun the world or even to rid us of all things worldly.  God’s vision of the Kingdom of God is to recreate the world into what it is called to be–the whole world, not the ones who follow the rules or the ones who are “good”, but everyone.  So, in this life of faith, we do not magically crossover to being “saved” from being “unsaved” and then sit back and wait for God to pluck us out of our miserable existence.  Rather, we yield to new meanings and new circumstances as God recreates our lives into Life and brings about the fullness of the Kingdom of God throughout this wonderfully created world in which we live.

That’s what Lent is about–new meanings and new circumstances.  Maybe it’s about dropping the “but” in life, ridding ourselves of the dualism that we have so carefully constructed to affirm our own understanding of who God is.  God created the life that each of us has.  Why would God call us to leave it behind?  Rather God is recreating it as we speak, bringing it into being, into the image that God envisions for it.  You know, if we look at things with the eyes of a world where God is not, a world that waits for God to return, there is always a “but”; BUT if we look at all of Creation with the eyes of faith, with the eyes of those who believe in a God who came into our midst to show us how much we are loved, everything has an AND.  Another word for that is grace—undeserved, unmerited, uncontrollable.  It is God’s gift to each of us.  And all we are and all we do and all that happens to us comes by grace.  We are saved not by what we do (or don’t do); we are saved by grace.

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli

All We Like Sheep

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Scripture Passage:  Psalm 78: 52-54

52Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54And he brought them to his holy hill, to the mountain that his right hand had won.

We tend to think of the wilderness as a place where we are sort of thrown out into virtually alone. We imagine wandering, looking for solace, looking for companionship, looking for someone to help us out of where we are. We search for God as if God is somehow parked at the exit of the wilderness holding a sign with our name on it as we disembark. And yet this psalm reminds us that even in the wilderness we are not alone, that God leads us and guides us through the treacherous terrain. There are times when God, as it says, guides us IN, wandering, living the wilderness. It says that we are led to safety and brought to a place that is holy, that is of God. So, why then, here in the wilderness, do we feel so alone?

We are accustomed to pastoral images in the Bible, beautiful images of the flock being led or shepherds on the hillside. We know what it is supposed to connote. The shepherd guides the sheep to the place where they will be well-fed and cared for, the place where they will grow and flourish into maturity. There is soft, green grass, blue skies, and other sheep in the fold to keep them company as they grow together. But this is not what it looks like right now. Where is the green grass? Where are the blue skies? Where are my trusty companions? And so, searching for our image of where a shepherd is supposed to lead, we leave to look for greener pastures or easier pathways. But the grass isn’t really greener, the skies really aren’t any clearer, and in our confusion, we fall, tumbling down the gulley, bruised and tired.

As we have said before, the wilderness is not just something to rush through. God does not always lead us out of the desolation that surrounds us. As the passage says, God leads us through or in the wilderness, helping us navigate the rough paths and the difficult sightlines and, when the time is right, bringing us home. Our problem is that we don’t envision ourselves like sheep because we are trying so hard to be the shepherd of our own lives, to be in control, to be the guide. We are afraid of losing control of our lives. And so, we often wander away and get lost. We may end up in a place that is not ours to be. But think about sheep. Sheep are seldom characterized as one of the smartest beings on the farm and yet, sheep know to whom they belong. Sheep know how to follow. Sheep know how to be part of a flock, holding each other up, helping each other see the shepherd. And when, as happens every now and then, a sheep gets lost, the sheep trusts that the shepherd will come and bring the sheep home.

Lent is a season that teaches us to be more like sheep, to follow God through the wilderness, learning the things that it teaches, accepting the things that it offers, and knowing, that, when it is time, God will guide us out of this lostness, out of despair, out of the loneliness.  You don’t have to fix it; you don’t have to hurry; you don’t have to make it something it is not.  Just follow.  Just live.  But by following God’s lead, we will see beauty we have never seen and companionship we have never known.  That’s what you get when you’re part of a flock. The promise is that, when the time is right, we WILL be led home.

God…leads us step by step, from event to event.  Only afterwards, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us. (Paul Tournier)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli

Snake-Handling

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Scripture Passage:  Numbers 21: 4-9 (Lent 4B)

4From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” 6Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

OK, this is just odd!  It’s one of those passages that probably wouldn’t have made it into the lectionary except that the Gospel writer that we know as John included it.  (We’ll read that this week too!)  Personally, I think it’s a little over the top–sending poisonous snakes.  I mean, it seems that the people were only asking for a little variety in their menu.  Isn’t this a little out of proportion?  I mean, really:  complaining…bad; poisononous snakes all over the place…REALLY bad.

But from the very beginning of Creation, as one of the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible explains, the snake has slithered on its belly and eaten only dust and yet it has done so without a word of complaint.  So, then, what better character to rule over the people who have murmured over a choice of food?  Essentially, the snake comes to teach humility and patience.  But we as humans cannot resist being more than a little squeamish at the character.  There is something about a snake that demands our full attention.  When someone mentions that a snake is nearby, we don’t ask what lessons can be learned.  Instead, we climb on the furniture or over one another to get out of the way.

Our full attention…to how many things do we give that?  And how many things would we rather climb on the furniture or run to get out of the way rather than dealing with them?  And it is interesting that in order to save the people from the plague of snakes, God gave them a snake.  So, when someone is bitten by a snake, he or she is to look at a snake.  What sense does that make?  Think about it…we are to look at our fear; we are to look at those things that tempt us; we are to look at those things that distract us and pull us away from God.  (Goodness…that sounds a lot like this season of Lent!)  And God, in God’s infinite wisdom puts them on a pole so that we cannot avoid seeing them.

But only in the wisdom of God do we counter something that we fear with that which we fear.  Here, God’s antidote for the snakes is a snake.  Isn’t that sort of paradoxical?   We have to look beyond that with which we are uncomfortable.  We have to look into a sight that brings such fear, such loathing, that it is hard for us to find God’s presence in it.  And, deep within it, is the sight of humility and patience, a creature that, according to Creation mythology, had resigned itself to surrendering to that which ruled its life.  And by looking into one’s fear, by looking into one’s death, one is freed—the ultimate paradox. 

It is notable, too, that nothing is said to imply that God destroys the snakes.  Essentially, God does not destroy the enemy—God recreates it.  Isn’t that an incredible thing?  You see, we need to recognize that the traditional Jewish reading of the “Garden of Eden” story differs from the classical Christian version.  While the snake has often been identified in both faiths as Satan (or haasatan), the Jewish understanding is not that of something or someone outside of God’s command or a rebel against divine authority.  Rather, it’s sort of a prosecuting attorney, entrusted with testing, entrapping, and testifying against us before the heavenly court.  It’s part of God’s way of maintaining order.  It’s part of God’s way of showing us a mirror to look at ourselves.  So, from that standpoint, these snakes or serpents are not enemies but, rather, part of our ourselves.  (On some level, maybe that’s more uncomfortable even than enemies!  I mean, it makes it a whole lot harder to run away from it then!)

So, the simple equation is this:  the cure for snakes is a snake…the cure for something is to stare it straight in the face.  Where have we heard that before?  Centuries later, God did it again.  The cure for our death is death—death of those things that stand in the way of our relationship with God, death of those things that make us less than human, death of those things that are not part of who we are as images of God.  And, if you remember, the cure for a life of pain and suffering and temptation is life eternal.  Snakes for snakes; death for death; life for life.

Those whose eyes are fixed on the Son of Man as he is lifted up ultimately see God’s healing of the world.  The Cross is that thing at which we are forced to look, forced to see a part of us that we do not want to see, forced to see the way we murmur and complain about our lives when they’re really not that bad.  In an odd way, the cross is that snake on a pole.  So as hard as it may be, stand still.  It doesn’t make sense in this world.  It’s gruesome and loathsome and filled with danger.  But God, in God’s infinite wisdom, takes it and turns it into life.  We don’t need to become snake-handlers; we just need to be aware of that to which we should be looking.  So, in this wilderness season of Lent, walk now, toward the cross—the instrument of death that gives you life.       

Our faith begins at the point where atheists suppose it must be at an end.  Our faith begins with the bleakness and power which is the night of the cross, abandonment, temptation and doubt about everything that exists!  Our faith must be born where it is abandoned by all tangible reality; it must be born of nothingness, it must taste this nothingness and be given it to taste in a way that no philosophy of nihilism can imagine. (H.J. Iwand)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli

Surely the Lord is In This Place

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Ladder of Divine Ascent, 12th cen, Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai

Scripture Passage:  Genesis 28: 10-17

10Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”   16Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Jacob came to a certain place, a certain place in the wilderness. I don’t think it was a particularly holy place. It was just an ordinary place with an ordinary stone. But then Jacob dreamed. And what a wild dream that was! Now, remember the “back story” of this. Jacob is not just wandering through the wilderness to get a little exercise. He is fleeing from his family and from the hatred of his brother Esau (you know that one that Jacob tricked into giving up his birthright.) Jacob is also fleeing from himself, from his own trickery and his duplicity. Perhaps he has had enough of himself. He is at the lowest point of his life. He is afraid, afraid of what will come next, afraid of Esau, probably a little afraid of God. The wilderness was nothing compared to the fear that Jacob felt.

And then a dream, a remarkable dream, probably the world’s most famous dream, fills his night.  He dreams that a ladder or, more likely, a stairway or a ramp extends from earth to heaven.  (Although, that really messes up that song!)  And on this ladder (or stairway or ramp or ziggurat or whatever it was), there were divine beings traversing up and down.  In this dream, we on earth were not left, as we sometimes think, to our own devices, to wander in the wilderness alone, and the place of the Divine, the Sacred, Heaven, or whatever you want to call this realm, is no longer off-limits to us.  In the wilderness, the two are intertwined, a part of one another.

The point is that, when the dream had ended, God was there.  The Hebrew is a little ambiguous.  It is not clear if God was “before” Jacob or “beside” him.  I think maybe the ambiguity is the point.  No matter where we are, God is there.  And then, Jacob, this one who is always looking out for himself, is given the promise that those before him had been given—land, prosperity, presence, and homecoming.  God promises to bring Jacob home.  Jacob realizes that he has encountered God and he claims God’s promises as part of who God calls him to be.

We are like Jacob.  Sometimes we, too, are wandering in fear—fear of being found out, fear of our past and what we’ve done, fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear that it will not go as planned.  Perhaps we are afraid of what it means to encounter God, to follow Jesus, to come near to the Cross (not the cleaned-up one…the Golgotha one).  Perhaps we are afraid that our lives will change beyond our control.  We want to encounter God, but we want to do it on our terms. We don’t dare to even imagine that we could possibly do what God is calling us to do. And so, we stay here, afraid of who we are, feet firmly planted in what we know. Maybe “fear not” is calling us to encounter the God who walks with us.  For surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!  I was so wrapped up in fear that I did not realize that God was holding it.

To live with the conscious knowledge of the shadow of uncertainty, with the knowledge that disaster or tragedy could strike at any time; to be afraid and to know and acknowledge your fear, and still to live creatively and with unstinting love: that is to live with grace. (Peter Abrahams)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli

Voices

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Scripture Passage:  Psalm 19 (Lent 3B Psalter)

1The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.  2Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. 3There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; 4yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, 5which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. 6Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.

7The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; 8the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes; 9the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 10More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. 11Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. 12But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults. 13Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.

14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

This is a familiar psalm.  Centuries of composers have helped bring its words to life for us.  (Thank you Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and Haydn, to name a few!)  Our Jewish brothers and sisters recite the words of this psalm at Shabbat and Yom Tov.  C. S. Lewis declared Psalm 19 “the treasure trove of the Psalter.” 

You can look at it in three parts.  The first part is a recount of Creation, the Creation that God spoke into being and that still proclaims God’s glory not with words but with an eternal voice that is part of its very being.  The second part (beginning with verse 7) points to the voice of Scripture, the laws, histories, stories from the oral tradition that helped to shape how people understood God and how people understood the Creation surrounding them.  And the last part is a prayer, a prayer that all these words, both spoken and unspoken, be the very representation of Emmanuel, God with us.  Now I read a commentary by someone that said that you shouldn’t try to distill this Psalm down into a single theme.  So, that suggestion notwithstanding, I think it’s about “voices”, about the voices of Creation and the voices of humanity joining together in prayer, proclaiming God’s glory with a cacophony of sound.  It is the sound of God’s voice speaking through the creatures.  It is the sound of glory.

In his book, Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner says that “glory is to God what style is to an artist…The style of artists brings you as close to the sound of their voices and the light in their eyes as it is possible to get this side of actually shaking hands with them.  In the words of Psalm 19, “The heavens are telling the glory of God,” it is the same thing.  To the connoisseur, not just sunsets and starry nights, but dust storms, rain forests, garter snakes, and the human face are all unmistakably the work of a single hand. Glory is the outward manifestation of that hand in its handiwork just as holiness is the inward. To behold God’s glory, to sense God’s style, is the closest you can get to God this side of paradise, just as to read King Lear is the closest you can get to Shakespeare.  Glory is what God looks like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.”

Last year, I went to the funeral for the father of my best friend from college.  There weren’t a lot of people there so after greeting Cindy and her mom, I slipped in toward the middle of the large sanctuary.  In his day, Jim (Cindy’s dad) had begun work in 1960 with a newly-formed government program that had recruited the “best and the brightest” scientific and engineering minds from around the country.  That program would become NASA.  Well, most of you know the rest of the story.  So, in that sanctuary were remnants of that original program—the few early astronauts that are still around (many now in their 90’s), the engineers that went unnamed (like Jim), all of those who pursued the great beyond and finally landed humans on the moon and set the groundwork for our current exploration of Mars. 

The text for the funeral was this one.  Now, I’ve never heard this used for a funeral but how perfect!  It was perfect because these people understood it.  They understood that they were not “conquering space” but discovering it, entering it, staying as long as they dared.  They understood that there was something beyond themselves, bigger than them, that invites us to look at it, to hear its voices, to come closer and closer, and even to enter the very tip of its being.  By being a part of that, they had the opportunity to touch the very hand of God.

We are not different from them.  We are all invited to hear these voices—if we listen.  We are all invited to touch the very hand of God—if we put down what is in ours.  We are all invited into the glory of God.  This season of Lent is about getting out of ourselves, learning to see with new eyes and hear with new hearts.  Because, see, if you do that, if you truly walk away from yourself just for a moment, you will hear the very glory of God in the voices of the creatures.

Fr. Richard Rohr in (I think I have the right one of his books!) Everything Belongs, talks about the notion of the earth and the heavens, this life and the next, overlapping a bit. The old Celtic thinkers would have called it “liminality”, an Old English word that means “betwixt and between”.  Rohr says that during our faith journey, we need to allow time in that space of liminality.  He exhorts us to stay as long as we can, as long as we dare.  We can’t live there because it’s probably a little much for big doses of it right now.  But it is there that we will see the very Glory of God.  It is there that we will hear that cacophony of voices proclaiming God’s handiwork.  It is there that we will know that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, part of a voices that spoke everything into being long ago and continues to speak to us in still, small voice.   So, tonight, go outside.  Look at the moon.  And you’ll understand.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

 The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Overturning

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“Christ driving the money changers away from the temple”, El Greco, c. 1610

Scripture Passage:  John 2: 13-19 (20-22) (Lent 3B)

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 

This passage is well-known to us probably not only for its significance but because of its absurdity.  After all, this is the usually-calm, always-loving, infinitely compassionate Jesus just making an absolute spectacle of himself.  Now, to put it in context, it wasn’t like this flurry of activity was going on INSIDE the nave of the temple itself.  The temple consisted of the very inner part, the holiest of holies, that, for the first-century Jewish tradition, would have been what held the dwelling of God.  Then there was an outer part, the “worship space” if you will for those that were cleansed for worship.  And then there was this outer, sort of “town square” full of activity and merchants.  There was nothing WRONG with it.  It wasn’t like they were selling doves on top of the altar. And the “money-changers” were there purely for convenience, offering a service of exchanging the “uncleansed” coins for the acceptable ones.  Again, nothing wrong or out of the ordinary was going on here.  This was the way the society ran.

So, Jesus enters.  I think that (literally) this was, as we understand it, Jesus’ way of cleansing the temple.  Perhaps that outer part that was “acceptable” to culture had become a little too important.  Perhaps, rather than merely a pass-through to get to what was important, it had become the central point itself.  Rather than a way to prepare for worship, perhaps it had become a way of merchandising God.  Or maybe this was Jesus’ way of waking us all up, reminding us that we have set our tables up in the wrong place.  Maybe it was Jesus’ way of saying that we had it wrong, that God did not merely exist within the walls of the holiest of places but also beyond.

When this Gospel version by the writer that we know as John was written, it was at least late in the first century and more than likely, was in the second century.  Paul had written his letters and was long gone.  The writers of the synoptic Gospels were gone (although, remember, even they weren’t written as it was happening.  I can tell you that the writers were NOT following Jesus around like a gaggle of press writers.)  And, more importantly, this temple would have been destroyed decades earlier in 70 C.E. during the Siege of Jerusalem. (The Temple has never been rebuilt.  After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th century, the Dome of the Rock, or al-Aqsa Mosque, was built on the temple mount.  That’s the gold dome that you see in all the pictures of the old city of Jerusalem. And even though Jews are now allowed to pray at the Temple Mount—actually the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall—the mount itself is under the administrative control of the Muslim Waqf.)  

But for those of us in the Christian tradition, we claim to espouse that God is everywhere, that God does not just exist in the sanctuary or the church but rather is in our midst–everywhere. We believe that the temple, itself, is not the place of God but that God dwells with us, indeed, IN us.  Our lives are that metaphorical temple. Really?  That would mean that our lives are not such that we are called to separate ourselves from the world.  The culture going on around is not bad.  The way our society runs is not evil.  In fact, our culture and our society is overflowing with God.  There is no longer a division between things “of this world” and “of God”.  (Remember that Jacob’s Ladder thing the other day.  The realms are comingled, sort of intersected.  We live in the “both and”) So, for those who believe, everything is full of God.  So how do we look upon this place that is full of God?  What reverence do we attach to our lives, our bodies, our home, our city, our nation, and our world?  No longer can they just be a “pass through” to get to what we think is God.  God is here, here in our midst.

Boy, that Jesus WAS a troublemaker!  After all, we had everything neatly compartmentalized.  We knew good and evil; we knew what was “of God” and “of this world”; we had the “secular” and the “sacred”, our “church lives” and our “work lives” all neatly separated.  Really?  Is that the way it is? Jesus never said that the world was bad.  In fact, God so loved the world…(we are told).  But Jesus turned the tables on us, reminding us that this way that we have separated things, this way that we have assigned value and worth of one over the other, is not the way we are called to be. Essentially, I think Jesus knew that from time to time, we would take our eye off the ball, so to speak, and put the emphasis where it did not belong.  That’s what this season of Lent does–it refocuses us on what’s important. Jesus knew that the love of things, the love of power, the love of control, and the acceptance of a system or a religion that values one person over another, and the attempt to keep things like they are would crucify us.  But even that, God would oveturn.  THAT is how much God loves the world.

 As long as we aim to get something from God on some kind of exchange, we are like the merchants.  If you want to be rid of the commercial spirit, then by all means do all you can in the way of good works, but do so solely for the praise of God. (Meister Eckhart, 13th cen German theologian and mystic)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli

The New Normal

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Scripture Passage:  Isaiah 40: 3-5

3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

So, here we wander in the wilderness, hoping against hope that it will all be over soon, that things will finally, once and for all, get back to normal (or at least a more normalized “new normal” that everyone keeps touting). So, what IS normal? Is it places that are not the wilderness? It is times that are not now? Is it ways of being that were before? Here, the exiles, just released from captivity, dripping with newfound freedom, are beginning to return. They are making their way through the wilderness, headed toward “getting back to normal”. But their city and their way of life lies in ruins. They can’t just go back and pick where they left off. They are looking for comfort, for solace, for a promise that God will put things back the way they were before.

But the problem is that’s not the promise that has been made. Rather than repair, God promises re-creation; rather than vindication, God promises redemption; and rather than solace, God promises transformation. God is making something new—lifting valleys, lowering mountains, and, ultimately, when all is said and done, revealing a glory that we’ve never seen before. The truth is, there is no going back. So what is normal? Perhaps “normal” is newness, going forward, becoming re-created. What if THAT was normal?

To be honest, have you ever really witnessed a highway being built? (If you haven’t, you don’t live where I do!) It’s not easy. It takes preparation and time and lots of heavy lifting. You have to recruit people to do it, you have to clear the way, you have to show people how to navigate through it. And once in a while (or every other weekend, as the case may be where we live), they have to close the road so that it can be made new. See, lifting valleys and lowering mountains is not an easy feat. God is not a magician. (Oh, sure, God could raise and flatten with the wave of a hand, I’m sure, but what fun is that?) In fact, I’m thinking the world, all of Creation, is even now groaning and shaking with all the movement that is happening, wanting at its very core to burst forth into being, to ignore God’s prodding to wait and be patient. And, no, it will never be like it was before. There is no going back. There is never any going back. In this life of faith, “normal” is newness, it is going forward through the wilderness toward a new normal.

At the end of the exile, the people realized that their former lives did not exist. And so, in this new normal, they had to rethink and recast their image of God. Rather than relying on what was familiar and comfortable, they had to find God again in the midst of a strange, new world. They had to discover that God was not in the repair business, that God was not there to clean up their mess and fix their woes, that God loves us too much to put things back the way they were before.

We are no different. This wilderness journey that we are on is not a “break” from our lives. Lent is not a season of denying ourselves and giving up sweets and talking about sin and suffering and repentance over and over and then sliding into to Easter morning with a “whew, glad THAT’S over…now we can go back.” If that were the case, there would be no point. If that’s what you think, there is a chocolate bunny that you can have right now! See, the deal is, the wilderness changes you; it changes your life; it changes the world. God is doing something new. There is a new normal. You can never, ever go back. But you CAN go home again. THAT’S what the wilderness teaches you.

Everything that God has created is potentially holy, and our task as humans is to find that holiness in seemingly unholy situations…We must remember that everything in this world has God’s fingerprints on it—that alone makes it special.  Our inability to see beauty doesn’t suggest in the slightest that it is not there.  Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with broad enough perspective to see it.  (Harold Kushner)

Grace and Peace,

 Shelli